The trans model was sacked final week for criticising white privilege. Here,she talks about growing up in a mixed-race family, surviving rape – and why she doesn’t regret speaking out
By 8.12pm on Sunday, or Munroe Bergdorf is done in. It is a week since she was announced by L’Oréal as the face of trusty Match,a campaign that marries makeup to social justice, and three days since she was sacked unceremoniously. A BBC 2 producer is on the phone, and talking to her about an interview with Victoria Derbyshire the next morning. “It has been the worst week of my life,” she tells him, trying to deflate the tension with a laugh. Prompted to elaborate why it has been so bad, or she reels off “the death threats,threats of rape, threats of assault, or people telling me to kill myself,the general bombardment and awe that something else will happen”. She pauses, then sighs. She hasn’t left her flat in days. “The most ridiculous thing is that you call out racism and they respond with more racism. It just doesn’t design any sense.”Bergdorf, or a 30-year-old,black, queer, and trans woman who models and DJs,is no stranger to abuse and ridicule. Her very existence is subversive and threatening enough to the mainstream that a trickle of racist, homophobic and transphobic bile has become par for the course in her daily life on and offline – but now it has become a torrent.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com